


Berry Tea

by Rainbowinthedawn



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-05
Updated: 2013-09-05
Packaged: 2017-12-25 18:03:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/956084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rainbowinthedawn/pseuds/Rainbowinthedawn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Louis notices that Harry talks in his sleep, he really doesn’t have the heart to tell it, keeping this little thing a secret while he listens to the conversations his best friend has in his most vulnerable state.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Berry Tea

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally posted on my tumblr page, but I decided to put it on here now too.

_'you can’t go to bed without a cup of tea, and maybe that’s the reason that you talk in your sleep.'_

The first time Louis heard Harry mumble in his sleep was the first night in the X-Factor house, after hours of dance rehearsals and vocal practices the five of them had crashed in their respective beds, Harry nursing a cup of tea before going to sleep, something he did every night, or so he told. It were just little murmurs, words that didn’t make any sense to Louis’ hazy, sleep deprived mind.

He had listened to him, even when his mind begged him to go to sleep. Had listened to every single sound he made until he passed out from exhaustion.

The second time had been in their flat in London after they first moved in. They had an open-door-policy there, which mainly meant that their bedroom doors weren’t closed ever, only when they had a guest over. Harry had claimed he was tired, making his regular cup of tea before disappearing to his bedroom, leaving Louis behind in their living room, watching some kind of sitcom.

There had been a soft bang echoing throughout their flat, alarming Louis. He shot up, listening carefully as to where the sound had come from. There were no following sounds, but his gut still turned. He had risen from the couch, tiptoeing around their flat, peeking around corners. There were still no sounds except from his breathing.

Once he had gotten closer to their bedrooms, there was a new sound, a soft rumble, much like Harry’s voice. So he peered around the doorframe. Harry was sprawled out on his bed, on his stomach, face sideways on his pillow. He took a step inside the room, his eyes falling on the remote that was lying next to Harry’s bed on the floor, upturned. It was a few feet away from the nightstand, Harry’s arm dangling over the side of his bed, close to the edge of the wooden piece of furniture. Louis smiled, knowing Harry had knocked the thing off when he had turned in his sleep.

He turned to leave, now knowing that no one had broken into their flat, when he heard his name being murmured. His eyes snapped up to Harry’s form on the bed, moving around before settling back in his massive amount of blankets. A sigh passed his friend’s lips, more jumbled together words leaving his mouth. Something about chicken wings and stealing them away from him.

Louis had just shaken his head in amusement, leaving the bedroom and stumbling back into the living room to drop back on the couch and watch the end of his TV-show.

After that it had been a returning thing, Louis hearing Harry talk in his sleep. It came more clear to him that Harry did this on a regular basis when they shared hotel rooms when they were touring. He would sit awake on his bed, leaning against the headboard, listening to Harry have whole conversations in his sleep until he fell asleep to the rough voice of his best mate.

Louis kept quiet about it, not telling any of the boys about the stories Harry told in his sleep. Mainly because he wasn’t sure if Harry knew for himself that he did it, and because most of the time he couldn’t make any sense of most of the things Harry said in his sleep.

It wasn’t every night he heard Harry talk. Most nights he didn’t, having fallen asleep out of exhaustion before Harry did, or Harry having collapsed right after they entered their hotel room after a concert, worn out after standing on his feet for hours and the adrenaline of their performance had washed away.

Louis had noticed that the nights Harry didn’t talk, were the nights he had collapsed from exhaustion and hadn’t managed to get his cup of tea before falling asleep. It probably wasn’t anything, but it seemed that Harry was talkative in his sleep and a little bit more restless than normal whenever he had drunk his steaming cup of berry tea.

He had taken it upon himself, once they were back from touring with the X-Factor candidates, to make Harry his nightly cup of tea, just so he could hear Harry talk about the most random things in his sleep. The first time Harry had blinked at him with his eyes wider than normal, taking the cup between his hands with a confused look on his face. Louis had just shrugged it off, pushing Harry into the direction of his bedroom, bidding him goodnight before disappearing into his own room.

After that, Harry hadn’t commented whenever he came to him at night with his favourite tea. It even went as far that Harry was already in bed, taking his tea from Louis’ hands eagerly as he entered his bedroom. Louis would leave then, leaning against the wall outside Harry’s room, waiting until he would fall asleep and start talking.

For some reason it made him sleep better.

As the months passed and their popularity grew, Harry’s sleeptalking lessened. He was stressed and Louis was afraid Harry was taking too much hay on his fork. They hardly had any free time, and time to sleep was even less.  The bag underneath his eyes went darker in colour every day, discreetly hidden by make-up applied by their stylist.

Louis still tried giving Harry his tea at night, but the boy hardly had time to take a few sips of the scorching drink before falling asleep from exhaustion, leaving his drink on his night stand, untouched most of the times. Louis would take it away in the morning, letting the cold liquid slip through the drain of their kitchen sink.

He was pretty much a walking zombie, Louis was impressed with what make-up could do, really. But it went so far that harry started getting headaches all the time from stress and lack of sleep. He watched it go on for a few more weeks before putting his foot down, ordering harry to his bed, telling him to screw meeting Nick and fans for once, pushing him to his bedroom and down his bed, telling him he would be back in a moment with a cup of tea.

Harry had protested, of course. But Louis had given him the best stern look he could muster before leaving for the kitchen. When he had returned, Harry was face down on his bed, arms underneath his pillow. Louis had seated himself on the edge of the mattress, rubbing soothingly at his back, mumbling comforting words as Harry sat up slowly, taking the tea Louis had cooled down with a little bit of water from the tap, so it wouldn’t take too long to be manageable to drink, in-between his hands, cupping the glass.

Louis had waited until the glass was empty, taking it with him as he left and Harry dropped back down on his covers, not bothering to cover himself up properly. Louis shut off the light as he left the room, pulling the normally wide open door a little bit close behind him.

It was the first time in weeks he had heard Harry talk in his sleep again, mumbling about rainbows and dwarfs as he passed by to get to the loo some time later. He couldn’t help but let a small smile crawl up his lips as he peeked into the room before continuing his journey to the bathroom.

Things seemed to go much better after that. Their album was a hit, they were touring all over the world and Harry seemed a lot less stressed out. He was his happy self again, and Louis noted that he had taken up his regular cup of tea before bed again. The midnight stories returned, just like Louis’s habit of staying awake to listen to them.

All was good when they finally had a week off, all the boys returning home to their families. It wasn’t until a few days into their little holiday he received a text from Harry, asking him if he ever knew he talked in his sleep. It seemed that Gemma had pulled a prank on him, videotaping him asleep as he mumbled about all kind of nonsense, posting it on the internet hours later.

Louis had sent a text back, telling the younger boy that he had never noticed.

He hadn’t known lying to him would feel so weird.

Harry told him it was probably his favourite tea that made him into a talking fool in his sleep. He had ranted on in a phonecall about how his mum had had said he had done that since he was little, certainly after he had a cup of berry tea just before bed.  She said he could have whole conversations with himself at night after that particular kind of tea.

Louis had kept quiet, somewhere deep down afraid Harry would stop drinking tea before going to sleep. But the first night they had both returned to their shared flat, he was glad to see the steaming cup in Harry’s hands when he shuffled out of their kitchen just before midnight, the brown liquid and smell so familiar.

Now that Harry knew he talked in his sleep it had become a lot harder to keep silent about it. He kept asking if he had said something particular embarrassing that night, or if he had kept him up with his continues blabbering. Every time Louis just shrugged, saying he hadn’t noticed, that he had never noticed him talking in his sleep.

The conversations had changed from then on. From the blabbering nonsense to actual things that made sense. Harry talked about his day, as if he was keeping a journal in his head, telling it the events of the day. It was more than once Louis could hear his name pass the younger lads lips in a sleepy whisper. It had happened before, but it was more frequently now. Before there was talk about him tickling a leprechaun, or flying on unicorns in the clouds. But now, now his name was mentioned with events he had done that day. From him just eating a Twix bar, to him slapping Liam in the balls.

Harry started complaining about dry throats in the morning, pointing out that maybe he should just stop drinking his favourite tea at night if this was the result. Louis had shaken his head at him, actually afraid that he wouldn’t be hearing the slow, deep rumble of his friends voice in a sleep haze, pausing every few second, the words passing his lips in whispery sighs.

He didn’t. He had tried different teas at night, but always went back to his berry tea, claiming that nothing put him to sleep better.

It was on their own tour that Harry started asking the other lads about it, if it bothered them when they were all asleep on the bus. Zayn had stared at him, head cocked to the side as if he had no idea what he was talking about. Liam had shrugged, saying he had only heard him once or twice, but that it didn’t bother him at all. Niall had just sat there, not commenting at all before returning to his game of football on their telly.

In some way, Louis could see it bothered Harry, that he was talking about things in such a vulnerable state, in where he could do nothing about it. He had tried to console him, joking about that if he did say something embarrassing, they would have told him. Harry had shrugged him off, dropping onto the couch to join Niall in watching the football game.

‘ _Just tell me, Lou!_ ' Harry had begged months later.

Louis was startled by de desperation in his friend’s voice. And he cracked. He cracked, telling Harry all the things that had happened in all those months. How he first noticed Harry talked in his sleep, that it were just mumbles back then, in the X-Factor house. How he had first heard his name being said when they first moved into their flat. how he had stopped when they were all on edge and Harry wasn’t drinking his tea anymore, how it had started again when they came home after their break, after he had found out he talked in his sleep, how his mumbles had changed then, that he was reliving his day in his sleep.

He even told him how he stayed up to listen to him, how mesmerized he was about what Harry told himself in his sleep, that he just couldn’t stay away from it, like a drug that put him to sleep and made him relax.

And Harry had just sat there, mouth opened as if he wanted to say something, but just couldn’t find the words. Louis apologized, telling Harry he should have told him from the beginning, when he first noticed that Harry talked on a regular base. But that it was something he could keep to himself, a secret no one knew about Harry, that it was his own little thing.

Harry hadn’t been angry at him, like he would have expected. No, Harry had jumped up, stalking to him, grabbing at his cheeks, smashing their lips together.

Louis flailed, trying to take a step back in shock, hand in the air. But Harry wouldn’t let him go, keeping a tight grip on his jaw and cheeks. It took some time for him to relax his muscles, to melt into the kiss and let his eyes fall close.

It was a few days after that moment that he decided that maybe he shouldn’t have kept this secret for so long. Because now it meant that he could hear Harry talk in his sleep more often, his breathy whispers caressing his heated skin as the curly haired boy snuggled closer against him and their shared blankets, once again mumbling about unicorns and fluffy marshmallow clouds where dwarfs were running around in.

He wouldn’t trade that for the world, and all just because Harry wouldn’t give up his berry tea.


End file.
